


After

by pacoca



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Destroy Ending, Domestic, M/M, Post-Mass Effect 3, Renegade Shepard (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 03:52:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16054991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pacoca/pseuds/pacoca
Summary: A renegade's thoughts about parenting.





	After

Shepard was not a kind man. That’s what they said. Kaidan supposed there was some truth to that.

There was a time when that was needed. When they were up to their ankles in Shepard’s sins and that was a _good thing._ Against everything that happened, it had to be.

Eight years later, Kaidan knew it was.

‘These get tinier every year…’ John’s eyes were strained. He squinted at the tiny flower buttons that barely fit his thumb and tried to slip them inside the hole that barely fit his pinky.

‘Fuc… n. Fun buttons.’ John hissed under his breath.

Its, well… adorable.

Their little girl played with the hems of her dress, twisting around and watching them sway under her. John desperately tried to keep her still.

Kaidan should really help, but watching them like this is far too entertaining. He should take out his camera, tease him a bit.

Maybe Kaidan wasn't a kind man either.

…

Alright, he’s helping.

 

 

  
  
********  
  
  
  
  


Summer here was scorching, but that was how Kaidan liked it these days. Their daughter bounced along the sand, her frizzy hair bopping like tiny balloons behind her.

They spent their afternoons like this, soaking in the sun and taking in the view. Out here it was easier to get away from the accusations, the lies and the shadows of his past that always threatened to overwhelm them. Again, Shepard wasn’t _always_ kind.

Kaidan looked at the scars that carved tired lines across his face and the leg that never healed the same way and wondered if John ever thought the same.

‘I think she takes after me.’ John said, resting his hand idly on his cane. Kaidan looked at him and frowned.

‘You’re kidding. She takes after me.’

They watched their daughter picking up various shells and carefully stuffing it in the pockets of her dress.

John continued, ‘See? She’s smart. Resourceful. She’d make a damn good spectre.’

She picked up another one, then promptly tossed it out the ocean.

‘I remembered you _died_ … and well, I didn’t. Technically that makes me a better spectre than you.’

A sudden blast of cool wind made her dress billow around her. She shrieked and laughed, all big cheeks and bright pink diaper.

‘Well… at least she has my good looks.’

Kaidan looked at her frizzy hair and coffee-colored skin and smiled.

  
  


 

********

 

 

 

‘If we had another one, say a boy or two, what would you think about it?’

‘Hypothetically?’ John raised an eyebrow.

‘Hypothetically.’

John grew quiet in the way the pragmatic seek silence to thread through the numbers racing in their head. The additions and subtractions necessary for a possible outcome, the value of a hundred lives to a thousand.

This time, he thought about the floor plan of their home. And the sacrifice needed to make space for two.

‘For starters, we make the guest room bigger at least. No way, the babies are going to sleep in that small space.’ John scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘Probably get rid of the garden…’

Kaidan imagined the floor plan in his husband’s head evolving. The tiny, guest room would absorb the space of the garden, so that the room itself is stretched to a couple of square metres. John’s line of fresh lettuce would be uprooted from the soil.

‘Yeah good idea.’ Kaidan said, ‘Probably be a bit of space if the kids want to adopt a dog or something...’

A tiny dog house will appear, along with its height and size, right where the garden shed used to be.

‘...Or have their friends over…’

Now it’s the kitchen that is larger, along with the lounge.

John let out a deep and contemplative, ‘Hmm.’

He was silent for so long, Kaidan wondered if he'd fallen asleep on his cane, ‘It’s all hypothetical anyway. Just thinking.’ He looked carefully at his husband, ‘But the _idea_ of adopting another kid… you’re ok with all that, right?’

This one he said with no hesitation, ‘Completely.’  

 

  
  
  
********  
  


 

 

Kaidan traced the valleys of John’s scars with his thumb. War and age criss-crossed on his skin  like a weave, a constant overlay of history that seemed forever intent on making itself known. Kaidan kissed the whole of them and settled on his lips last.

Their daughter snored quietly between them.

‘So,’ Kaidan started, ‘About that talk before with the kids…’

‘Yeah?’

‘It wasn’t _all_ hypothetical…'

John propped himself up with his arm, a smile playing on his lips. He could see it forming, even under the dark, ‘I know.’

Kaidan chuckled, ‘You know, I was trying to be subtle.’

He brushed a thumb on Kaidan’s chin. A light gesture that gives him shivers even now.

Kaidan smiled, ‘Their mother… passed away recently. Their dad was a soldier in the war. You know how it goes.’

John’s smile faded. He nodded solemnly.

‘Thought we could give them a good future, just like our girl here.’

They watched their daughter sleeping between them, her foot propped on his stomach, mouth hung open and her head resting beside John’s chest. Her head rose with his breathing.  

‘I haven't filed the adoption papers yet’, Kaidan continued, ‘I wanted to let you meet them first. Tomorrow, maybe?’  

‘That sounds good.’ John looked away, thoughtfully, ‘Never thought I’d be any good at this thing.’

John was quiet again. Kaidan let the silence settle between them.

‘I have to admit’, he continued, ‘I’m terrified.’

He could see the uncertainty in his eyes. Those eyes that were usually so full of purpose, so sure of themselves. Eyes he searched for in the battlefield for when he feels the ground caving underneath him. Kaidan placed his hand over his husband's. He unwrapped John’s fingers from the pillow and settled his comfortably between them. There was a tight crease on it where his fist used to be.

‘Yeah? You’re not the only one. Can’t imagine how the next few years are going to turn out with three kids.’

‘But you’re here, and I’m here’, he continued, ‘And we’ve been doing good so far. Something tells me this _parenting_ business won't be so bad with you around.’

John looked at their hands, a hint of a smile on the corner of his lips.

‘You’re a good father, John.’ Kaidan said. ‘You are. No matter who we were back then, what we did, we can have this. And we’ll do a good job of it too.’

_You’re allowed._

He watched his husband breathing in, before slowly training his eyes back on him. That familiar blue of it glinted under the dark like the stars in the Observatory, and it was then that Kaidan realised he was crying.

‘Hey’, he raised his other hand and wiped a quiet tear off his cheek. ‘You okay?’

John placed a hand over it and closed his eyes. His cheek was wet under his palm. Kaidan spread his fingers out and the valley of his scars were laid out to him like a map. He felt every mission behind them, every ruthless decision.

He caressed them, because they were all John’s, and because John was a kind man who wept at the thought of being allowed to be a good parent.

‘Yeah.’ He finally said, ‘I am.’

 


End file.
